BigBasket & Grofers explore merger talks

If the deal goes through, it will be one of the most significant moves made towards bringing about consolidation in a cash-guzzling consumer Internet economySamidha Sharma&Boby Kurian | TNN | Updated: January 16, 2017, 11:44 IST

Online grocers BigBasket and Grofers have held merger talks, though these discussions are preliminary and have moved slowly so far, multiple people familiar with the matter told TOI on the condition of anonymity.

If the deal goes through, it will be one of the most significant moves made towards bringing about consolidation in a cash-guzzling consumer internet economy , which has been heavily reliant on investor capital to grow in the recent years.

Sources in the know said talks between the two parties, which started in November last year, will be brought up during BigBasket's board meeting scheduled for end of January.

The next steps also hinge on BigBasket's financing round, which if done successfully may scupper the proposed deal. The Bengaluru-based grocery e-tailer has mandated investment bank Morgan Stanley for a $150 million fund-raise, which is expected to close by April.

Separately, people familiar with the goings-on said Grofer's heavyweight backers SoftBank and Tiger Global, ploughing fresh funds into the merged entity, could also be an important criterion for deciding the future course of talks. "If their fund-raise doesn't go too well, the merger is very likely to happen keeping in mind the $60-million cash that's in the bank for Grofers," said a source.

When TOI contacted Hari Menon, co-founder, BigBasket, he said, "We do not respond to speculations like these. We are in a very comfortable position on capital availability." Albinder Dhindsa, co-founder & CEO of Grofers, said, "We don't comment on speculation. Our business has grown 50% over the last quarter and we continue to work on building a sustainable grocery business. Currently, we are not looking at any investments or strategic options," he said.

Grofers, which emerged as one of the hottest on-demand delivery startups amassing around $170 million, most of it in 2015, had a tough last year as interest around the express delivery sector has waned perceptibly . In order to conserve cash, Grofers spent the whole of last year pruning its business and cutting costs, which stagnated its growth dramatically.

Cost per delivery on the express model has been the big impediment for startups like Grofers, making the business unviable and in constant need for capital. Most players levy minimal charges, which do not cover full delivery cost for them, making their path to profitability a big challenge.

Over the past year, Grofers has been attempting to change its model from a pure-play express delivery outfit to one where it's stocking inventory through distribution centres similar to BigBasket. It also went back to its merchants for facilitating deliveries to cut costs.

BigBasket, which too launched a 90-minute express delivery service last year, saw its sales grow 231% to Rs 563 crore in the financial year ending March 2016. But net losses zoomed to Rs 277 crore from Rs 61 crore, on the back of increased marketing spends like signing Bollywood actors Shahrukh Khan as a brand ambassador, spiralling cost per delivery, and expenditure incurred on setting up warehouses.

While BigBasket claims to be clocking an average of 50,000 daily orders out of which 25% is on its express platform, Grofers does around 10,000 average orders per day . In June last year, the Gurgaon-based Grofers launched scheduled deliveries, which it claims now make up almost 90% of its business with ondemand being the rest 10%.

"It's a dilemma for Grofers whether to spend money or seek a merger. For BigBasket, it finds little value in Grofers' technology , customers or revenue," said a second source.

"It's a different issue if Tiger and SoftBank want to talk a merger with follow-on investments. The hurdle to the deal making is the fact that BigBasket would dictate terms, but Grofers wouldn't give up because it still has a lot of cash left on its books,' this person said.

Grofers founded by IITians Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar in 2013, started off by doing deliveries for other merchants like a business-to-business venture but pivoted to a consumer-facing platform in late 2014, after which it received the bulk of its capital. Sequoia Capital was its first institutional investor.

A source said the proposed merger talks and BigBasket's fund raising were independent of each other.

Grofers is not a distress seller even though worries about its business model have crept up of late. It's technology and customers may hold better value for hypermarket chains of Aditya Birla and Reliance, but not at the value the startup seeks, a person privy to the developments said.